Richard “Dick” Hyman turns 99 today! (He was born March 8, 1927.) Dick Hyman is a jazz pianist [1] and composer. Over a 70-year career, he has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, pioneering electronic musician, and composer. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters fellow in 2017.
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March 8th is also the birthday of famed revolver shooter, big game hunter, and gun writer Elmer Keith, who co-designed the S&W .44 Magnum and .41 Magnum cartridges. He authored the book Sixguns [2], which is still considered a standard reference. His fascinating life story is told in his last book, Hell, I was there! [3]A Proto-Redoubter, Keith spent the second half of his life on a ranch near Salmon, Idaho. (Keith was born in 1899 and died February 12, 1984.)
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Today’s feature article is by our friend “Kim Kipling”, a retired CIA officer. It is not part of the writing contest judging. JWR recommends his books.
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We still need entries for Round 123 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest [4]. More than $981,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 123 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail [5] us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics [6]. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.